Unexpected Start to the RV Trip (Monterey California RVing)

On our last travel video, we left off in Auburn, California after our good friends Jeff and Deb fulfilled a decade-long dream together, getting Jeff a belt buckle in the Super Bowl of trail races, the Western States Endurance Run. He was successful, beating the clock by a mere 13 minutes and having the race of his life. We all had an amazing weekend, one we'll remember forever, but we kind of knew it was going to be an exhausting one as well, so we planned a bit of a vacation in for the 4th of July week that followed it. Today we're headed four hours to the coast, trading in the running trails and high 90 degree temps for the cool 60s and the sand dunes. Monterey, California. Oh, we're back on the water. We've spent like half a day here before in the van days many, many years ago, but this is our first time staying in the area for a week. And I am so excited to be back on the Pacific Coast right off PCH. It's going to be beautiful. The weather's cooler. Take a right. We almost missed it. Look at that turning radius. I know. I purposely didn't reverse just to show you that I could. Marina Dunes RV Park. I'm so excited for a new spot. I like it. It's 4 15. Office is closed. I feel like this is like almost island time around here. Catching some island vibes. Yeah, it's four o'clock. Everybody's closed up. They just got leave your little packet with your site number. And it's a Monday too. Four o'clock on a Monday. Louie's smelling the ocean air. He loves that. We don't know what is in store for us this week, but it's going to be a fun one. These spots are tight. I mean, lengthwise, we're right there. We wouldn't have fit if we were any bigger than this. Yeah. First things first. I should have been checking out there, but we really don't have anywhere to go, but this is the third time using the level mate. Do you think it's going to earn its keep this time? Yeah. I feel like this time you're going to have a better experience. You know, I'm finding actually that a lot of these RV sites are nose down and this one's actually not bad at all, but we've had like three or four RV sites that are taking our front wheels off the ground. It's crazy. And like the little three, four inch ramps that most people have, not enough, not enough. So yeah, the last space was I think eight inches off, but this is good. So this is going to be easy peasy. All right. So after extending the slides out, it corrected itself a little bit, which is how I set it up. I set the level with the slides in the out position so that when the slides are in the in position, it's off a little bit, but it still says three quarters of an inch down in the front. So to me that, you know, maybe that's the margin of error that these things have is three quarters of an inch. Maybe it's an inch. I think I just got to learn a little bit more about it, but this is showing in the front, not just the left side. Every time we set up, Chris starts vacuuming. I do the outside stuff, sewer hoses, electrical. And one thing that I'm still getting used to is the bay doors that swing left to right on this motorhome because the swing on these doors can be so big that if you don't pay attention to what's next to you at the gas stations or truck stops, rest areas or anything like that, these doors are like four feet long and they swing out pretty big and you can either ding your door or ding whatever. But I do love how much space is in the outside of this and it's just something to get used to and remember. Just like not hitting your head on the slide. I'm starting to get my sewer set up, water set up, figured out. I got quick disconnects on all of the water hoses. This is the black tank hose that I just leave hooked up to the black flush the whole time. And then I just obviously hook the other end up to the water spigot when I need to flush it. But I just leave it hooked up so that it doesn't like dribble out or backflow out of there when you're done flushing. And on the sewer side of it, I finally got my Valterra valve back. I had these on the last two RVs. Absolutely love them. It's just a third waste gate valve that's right at the end of your hose. So the black and the gray, once those are closed, there's still a little bit of pipe room. It's not as bad in this setup, but some of the other ones, these valves are way back in the RV and you can get a lot of leakage out of this. So having another valve right here at the very end, it stops it from dribbling. So you can see here, if I pull open the gray, a little bit of gurgling is coming where it's hitting this valve right here, but nothing came out right here. So it's even like an extra precaution so that if either one of these valves did fail, you still have a third one here. So until I open this one like that, then it all starts rushing out. Oh, hello. Oh, it's Deb. It's Deb. Hi Deb. Aaron was just outside, so he has no idea what you just said. Do you want to tell him? Because it's really cool surprise. Yes. So I'm trying to arrange a cool surprise and unfortunately with the 4th of July weekend, it's limiting when we can do it to tomorrow. And I was wanting to rent you guys a convertible to go drive around Monterrey for the day. Oh, that sounds fun. That sounds so cool. We will love it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Thank you so much. I kept thinking of all the places I wanted you guys to go and I'm like, oh, wait a Wow. You know, we're starting vacation right now. So, you know, after that wonderful weekend that we just all went through, I think we all need a little vacation, right? Yes. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. So we're excited. We are excited. Jeff is laying in bed with ice packs on his feet and a blanket. How's he doing? He's doing pretty good. He's wiped out, of course, and his feet are sausages. He's never heard this much after a race, but that's just what happens. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Love you. Bye. Well, this video just got a little bit more exciting. Just got a whole lot more fun, didn't it? I'm going to let my hair down. Cute wind. Yeah, I see a little wind in here. We started the next day off like we do every day, a couple mile walk with the Basenjis, and luckily right across the street is the entrance to the dog-friendly Marina Dunes Preserve with only a 500-yard walk to the ocean. These dunes were a lot more colorful than I expected with the surprising amount of vegetation on them. It was a little bit of a trek to get there, but once you see that view of the ocean, man, it never gets old. Then we hopped in the Uber for the 15-minute drive to go pick up that convertible. Well, have you ever seen the Jerry Seinfeld TV show where he has a reservation and then they don't have his reservation? Oh, I'm sorry. We have no midsize available at the moment. I don't understand. I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation? Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars. But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation. I know why we have reservations. I don't think you do. That happened with the convertible. They don't have any convertibles in stock, but that's okay. It's not really the best convertible weather, and we're just going to roll with the punches today. They are putting us in a nice little Land Rover Defender that's going to be fun to cruise around in. You know how to take the reservation, but you don't know how to hold the reservation. You so fancy. I could get used to this, Aaron. I think we found our next toad vehicle everybody wants us to get. It's going to take us a little bit extra to get out of here because we want to push every button. Oh, that's what it is. Okay. Nice. Oh, yeah. What do you think this fancy thing is? I have no idea. I am so stoked. Connect. Apple play. Yes. Okay. So here's the thing. The mission of the day is, aside from driving around, seeing the beautiful area, Aaron said he wants to have seafood for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today. He said, Chris, you have a whole freezer full of turf, and today I want you to have a belly full of surf. So we are going to do the surf all day, every day, including breakfast, and I am ready to eat. If we ever make it out of the parking lot. First stop, schooners for breakfast. We're hoping to get a money table with a view. That's number one priority. The menu looks really good. It also looks pretty expensive. Aaron might be changing his tune by the end of the day. He's going to say, no more surf. No more surf. We're getting frozen pizza for dinner. This was the hardest restaurant to get into. We were lost. It was a little bit of a maze, but we figured it out and it is worth the effort. The view here is exactly what we were going for. A little too cold to sit outside this morning, but still get a view. The latte is delicious. We ordered, for breakfast, the Dungeness Crab Eggs Benedict. We are really big eggs Benedict fans. We rarely go out to breakfast and when we do, we try to always get a Benedict. So crab, Benedict, and it's going to have lemon, spinach, and then a roasted tomato hollandaise sauce. So it has its own little flair that I'm really excited about. It's not just your classic Benedict. It's very unique. And the waiter said it is delightful. Look at those chunks of crab. My mouth is watering. It smells incredible. The crab smells very fresh and so good. And those eggs look perfect. And look at those beautiful roasted potatoes. I am in heaven right now. I'm so excited to eat this. Breakfast was good, but expensive. So I might be rethinking this seafood challenge a little bit. And my new mission is to make the seafood lunch cheaper than the seafood breakfast. Oh my goodness. Just for my portion. You get whatever you want. The sun has finally broke through the fog. It's incredible how the sunshine changes not only the colors, but also the entire mood of the water. So it started a little dreary and dark and now it's bright and beautiful and the birds are chirping. We saw a seal. And actually our server told us that there were some humpback whales out right out the window all day yesterday just hanging out, playing. That would be super cool to see some whales today. I don't know what's going to be in our cards, but we'll keep our eyes peeled. I'm going to rename this Squirrel Point instead of Lover's Point. I've never seen so many little ground squirrels. Yeah, they're everywhere. They're totally everywhere and they want to be all up in your business. And Louie and June are going to smell them on us when we get home. And you're allergic to them. I'm allergic. I'm not sure where this leads to. Up the hill. I found it. I found Lover's Point, babe. Hey, does it actually say it? No. I'm kind of speechless. It's just, it is really beautiful here. So pretty. Sun finally came out. It's still a little chilly. It's like 60 degrees out. It's just pristine up here. We have so many great points of interest on our route. This is the first. We barely, we haven't gotten to the 17 mile drive yet. We're going to have to start to be selective on where we pull over and sightsee because our clock is burning fast today. Isn't it? Stay tuned for the next two hour video. Look at that rock. Usually you see like seabirds and things like that, like the, the seagulls, and all of a sudden there's squirrels. They're not afraid of people. It's 1225 to get onto this drive. Last time, six years ago in the Sprinter van, we were too cheap to pay for it. So this is going to be new. I think that's what made our van year so cool is like, we were so frugal and so cheap. We refused to pay for anything. And look at you in a Land Rover Defender right now. Now I'm just ready to swipe 12, $12. I'm just begging to pay $12 to go on this road. Get a receipt. Get a receipt. Ask if he's got any tips or inside, any inside information or tips. Have a great day. Thank you. Okay. Before we forget Bird Rock. Bird Rock. He said that immediately. He said it's tons of wildlife there. Birds, whales, whatever. And then go to the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach. You know what? He said, get out, take your picture on the 18th hole. So this is the famous Pebble Beach golf course. I guess I didn't even put that together. I'm, I'm not a golfer. What's Pebble Beach golf course. It's just a name that I've heard. You know, I'm not a big golfer either, but I've heard it. Cue the golfers right there. Yeah. So I don't remember exactly where we went last time, but right now we came through the Pacific Grove gate. So for sure, we know we want to try to get out and get a closer look at the Bird Rock, which is number seven. I'm interested in the Cypress tree. There's like a lone Cypress. That's a spot number 12. I think that's this tree on the cover. And then we do want to stop at the lodge, which is by the 18th hole. I at least have those three spots that I want to get out of the car. It was raining a little bit. It's been like sunshine, raindrops, sunshine, raindrops, one of those kinds of days. No snow. Ready? Let me hear your Land Rover joke. The Land Rover is so full of itself that it puts a picture of itself right on my message board. So when I'm driving the Land Rover, I'm looking at the Land Rover and I'm thinking, oh, it's so beautiful. So you know that you're in the Land Rover. I know that I'm in the Land Rover. I get it. I get it. Aaron, I think you needed to bring your bigger lens. I do need my bigger lens. You need your bigger lens. There's Bird Rock. It's not just a clever name. It is covered with birds, but I fear that the camera might not be able to pick them up. You can see it's like covered in brown, black looking stuff, and that's birds, folks. So it's really cool just listening to all the birds. You've taken all the sounds of the waves crashing, the birds. They're not quite chirping. They're more like honking out here. They sound like seals. I thought they were seals, but they're birds. I think there is seals out there. Way out there. Oh, I do see seals on Bird Rock. Yeah. There are seals and birds delight out here. There's a fight for renaming the rock. Seal Rock. Oh wait, there is Seal Rock here. Oh, look at that guy over there. He's got a big lens. So as I sit here and ponder Bird Rock. Yeah. Doesn't it make you wonder why that is the only rock where all of the birds and all the seals, like all of the wildlife, is right there on that only? Yeah. And the sign said that it was so popular that it was covered in five feet of bird poop. Well, actually they called it Guana, which I know from Ace Ventura is bird poop. Bat poop. Bat poop. See, pop culture can get you some information in the world. But why do they choose that rock specifically? Does it say that? No, that's what I'm saying. It's so interesting because once they cleared all that poop off, which they used for fertilizer, the sea lions then took over the rock. And now it's like a battle. Who owns it? Whose turf is it? That white is all bird poop. Is it really? Yep. Well, we're officially halfway through the drive because of that famous 250 year old tree right in the middle of it. You know, the cypress trees are part of what makes this area so unique. The cypress trees are so cool. And I don't know why I put this spot number 12 on a little pedestal, but I'm happy to be here. And it is cool to see out alone on that. Is it an island out there? That's the logo. Cypress tree logo. We're at the Pebble Beach Visitor Center slash market. There's hot food in here. There's gift shop. There's wine. There's tons of merch. If you're into gulf at all, it is cool to be here. Something worth seeing. I'm personally not into gulf at all, but I still love being here. And it's a really great spot along the route to just get out of your car. You could have a picnic if you brought some food, you can grab some food. I'm guessing there's a restaurant. Yes, there are more shops and restaurants that way. We've only stopped at a couple of the shops and there's still more around the corner. So this is a cool place to get out, walk around. I brought my jacket with in case you just want to sit outside and take it all in. You smell that? We don't know if that's the 18th hole. I think there's another hole way down there. But we're just going to go ahead and call it the 18th hole. I'm going to say it is. And it's pretty fun to walk around here and check out all the golfers and just feel prestige for being here. You're just driving your Land Rover around. I'm just fitting the part today and having fun with it. I'll be back. All right, let's go. Okay. We have never been to the Fisherman's Wharf here in Monterey, and it looks pretty festive, full of 4th of July hardware floating everywhere. It is fun. Lots of fun to be had. Just the view of the boats, it's overwhelming in a great way. And then you have this wharf that you walk down, all the people. The energy here is off the charts and I'm super excited to be here. I'm glad that we picked this area to have luncheon. And I think that, you know, this is the best spot when you want to enjoy Monterey, have some seafood, see some people, see some water, see some boats. It's all right here. I'm not sure if this is going to be really a good choice for the food option or if we're getting suckered into the tourist. The tourist restaurants. Yeah. I mean, there's a good chance of that, but it's part of the experience, right? Yeah. We want to sit on the water and we can't afford hotel premium prices. Let's go. Okay. So we got two options that we're thinking about. The old fisherman's grotto, which is right behind us. And then at the end of the pier is the rock fish. And I looked at both the menus. I'm cool with either one. The number one priority right now is Aaron needs a patio in the sunshine. The sun came out. I brought my jacket. I don't need it. That's a good thing. Number one is a patio seat. Aaron's going to claw his way to it. It turns out it's actually hard to get like a patio on the water. A lot of the patio dinings are on the sidewalk. But here at the very end, they don't have patio dining either, but they have these beautiful window seats and it's not a full wall window, but I would call this like three fifths window. It is big. Hey, you completed your mission. Aaron picked out fish and chips. Guys, I'm $7 cheaper than breakfast. Fish and chips, seafood trio. It smells really good. I love grilled fish, especially we had a heavy breakfast. So I was looking for something like not fried, not sandwich. This is exactly what I wanted. It smells delicious. Can't wait to dig in and see which fish I like the best. Yeah, and Aaron got the rockfish fish and chips. Local rockfish. Local Monterey rockfish. I might be stealing a french fry. Well, we dropped off the rental car, made it back to the RV park. You might think we're done with the video, but we're not because we have part three. We still have our third meal that we promised. It's coming. We have something up our sleeve. Hi guys. Hi. What did you do? What is that? It's your beef jerky. They ate all of your beef jerky. Is that beef jerky? Where did that come from? Who ate the beef jerky? And cheese. Where did you get that? What is this? Oh, John, you're, you were a bad dog. You got snuck into the garbage. Which garbage? I had some, uh, I had some of my travel day trash, travel trash. That's not a garbage. Travel trash. Yeah. I forgot to throw it away. It was in the side pocket. So it wasn't, it wasn't actually full. It was empty, but you guys were bad dogs. That's a bad dog. No Baru today? No Baru today? Are you gonna, are you gonna Baru? We don't get a Baru anymore? When do we drop the liver? Our day went very fast today. So during lunch, we had to quickly wrap it up so that we could get on our way to return our rental car. We had to fill it up with fuel first and all that worked out just fine. We got home, walked the dogs, they got into some trouble. And now that we're home, it is dinner time. We're not going to leave you hanging, but we didn't have time to dine out. We honestly just want to stay home at this point. So we planned ahead. And while we were at the Fisherman's Wharf, we stopped at Old Fisherman's Grotto, which if you recall, that was one of the restaurants that we were considering dining at. Well, this restaurant is voted one of the best in the area. Apparently voted best clam chowder for 21 years, since 2004. World's best pizza. World's best pizza. So we got one large thing of Monterey-style clam chowder, which I had no idea what Monterey-style meant. We googled it. Apparently it's more garlicky and more creamy. So in some recipes, restaurants like to use milk or half and half, and they use real cream. And then to go with it, we also got a nice sourdough bowl. If you go and eat there, this has the cutout in it where you can actually serve the soup in there. We just got it to go. We're going to break bread and have it on the side along with the soup. And I did get an impulse buy when we were there. They had some roasted garlic. It smells so good. I am a sucker for roasted garlic. I'm just going to schmear it on my sourdough. Now that I know that Monterey-style chowder has more garlic, I'm more excited to have it. This is like, I love it. I don't know. It just gives you that cozy, warm feeling. Whether you're sitting outside in the cold, sitting inside in a warm restaurant, sitting home in your PJs, like it is just a feel-good food. And we couldn't handle another meal at restaurant price. Okay, so those that are keeping tabs on Aaron and his spending on these meals, I am proud to announce that dinner is the cheapest meal of the day. Breakfast was more expensive than dinner, so that doesn't happen very often. But here we are, soup for dinner, and Aaron is thrilled. But we did complete the initial goal of seafood at each meal. That's what matters. We had a great day in Monterey. We had a great day sightseeing. We have so many pictures on our camera roll, so many video clips. And remember, the videos never do justice, but it was awesome. It was epic. We'll remember it forever. Thanks Jeff and Deb for the car rental that forced us to go out have some fun, and it was the perfect day. Oh yeah. Look at how thick that is. It's like Dairy Queen Blizzard thick, where it sticks on the spoon pretty good. It's like the inside of a chicken pot pie that's so thick, like gravy. And I don't mean that in a gross way. It's super awesome. I do not like clam chowder that's runny, watery. I would much prefer it to be thick and creamy. So this gets me pretty stoked. Are you calling it next year? They're winning? I think that they're going to make 22 years in a row. I'm going to go ahead and put some money on that. It doesn't even need bread. But that's the fun part. But that's the fun part. You get some crusty. Who doesn't love sourdough bread? So chewy. Ever wonder where the name Irene Iron Travels comes from? It's actually named after my online fitness and nutrition coaching business, Irene Iron Fitness. I help people move better, feel better, and eat better with strength training and real food. No fad diets, no harsh restrictions, no counting calories, and absolutely no processed food in a package. If you want to get stronger and feel better at any age, check the description below for the links with my new client special or join in on our next and upcoming group challenge.